Para, Brazil – Fifteen days ago, Para Brazil’s Michel “Demolidor” Pereira was just another talented face in the crowd in the Brazilian welterweight ranks. That all changed when the globetrotting 24 year old Pereira landed an utterly amazing spinning backflip stomp finish in a Serbian fight that rated as one of the most graceful and beautiful finishes ever witnessed in the sport of MMA. No exaggeration here – check out this clip of Pereira’s Mariusz Zaromskis-style-only-better finish from Serbian BC on April 28th to learn exactly why “Demolidor” hit the front of the Brazilian sports pages and found himself back in the main event mix at Arena Fight this past Saturday May 12th (author’s note: despite initial doubts when I first watched, this awesome move was 100% legal in Serbian BC):

On this evening Michel Pereira (18-8, #201 World) was tasked with a bout against journeyman Carlos Pereira (38-12-1) at a catchweight north of the welterweight limit. Unfortunately for both Pereiras, just over three minutes into the fight Carlos’ foot got caught in the base of the cage – think Jake Ellenberger versus Jorge Masvidal in the UFC – and he suffered a freak injury that caused the Arena Fight main event to be waved off and declared a no contest. On the bright side for the 24 year old viral star Michel Pereira: he’ll have another chance to impress in an international main event in just two weeks when he fights for the HEAT welterweight title in Japan on Sunday May 27th.

* The Arena Fight co-main event saw recent UFC competitor Henrique “Frankenstein” da Silva (14-4, 2-4 UFC, #106 World) threw down in a 15 minute brawl with 60 fight regionals veteran Edvaldo “Gameth” de Oliveira (35-25, #295 World). Frankenstein’s recent UFC run started hot when he followed a regional win over Ildemar Alcantara with consecutive Octagon finishes of Jonny “Bravo” Wilson and Joachim Christenson. Things then wen sour with a four fight losing streak punctuated by an exciting-yet-unsuccessful one-round brawl against striking legend Gokhan Saki. The 28 year old Frankenstein seemed to flat-out lose confidence in himself by the end of his UFC run, but he burst back onto the Brazilian scene two months ago with a TKO win for the Mr. Cage regional title. According to ringside reports, this particular bout was an exciting standup brawl, which sounds like the Henrique da Silva that UFC fans got to know back in 2016. The Para judges awarded this bout to Henrique “Frankenstein” by unanimous decision to give the still-promising light heavyweight prospect a second straight victory against solid regional opposition.

* The rest of this Arena Fight event featured several high grade fights – this would have been one of the best broadcast shows of the weekend had international fans been able to watch!